The Flashback Occurence
by WeBuiltThePyramids
Summary: Leonard finds something in a drawer in his room that makes the flashbacks start. Oneshot.


**This is based off of two conversations at Fanforum. First, the one about what might happen if Leonard came across the Snuggie, and second, our idea – first suggested by Roxanne – that Leonard honestly believes that Penny has zero feelings for him anymore. (Of course he doesn't know about how she behaved when he was with Priya.)**

**No copyright infringement intended. The ideas aren't even all my own.**

After a nearly year long relationship that now, in hindsight, had more downs than ups, Leonard Leakey Hofstadter was single again. And it felt good. No more arguments over whether or not he was an embarrasment to her because of his skin color…Leonard stopped to think how odd that sounded. Some people never stopped to think that white men actually did get judged and discriminated against.

Fine. So he wasn't Indian enough for Raj's family. Not like he could change it.

When he went out for the night with Penny, he enjoyed not letting her push him around. He got to see the movie he wanted; he got to eat all of his own fries. Sure, he'd blown it at the end, but all in all the night just made him realize how much better it was to be single.

Leonard went into his bedroom and took off his shoes, realizing that his socks didn't match. Priya would have given him so much Hell for that. Now, all he had to worry about was where the other socks were.

He opened his sock drawer – it didn't take a theoretical physicist to think of looking there – but to no avail. This was really going to start bothering him, he knew – he might even start twitching like Dr. Wackadoodle. Penny was the only one that knew this – so now that he thought about it, Bernadette and Amy probably knew too – but Leonard did get irritated about his socks and he didn't think anything could distract him when it came to looking for a missing one.

Except for maybe…

Leonard was on his knees, opening the bottom drawer, and he froze when his eyes landed on something soft that the light reflected blue. Then his hands moved, reaching for it, and when they touched the soft material…

_It was softer than he'd expected, more comfortable than he'd assumed when watching that infomercial all too late at night. Sure, the people in the ad looked relaxed, but most advertising exaggerated._

_Penny was sliding his arms into the sleeves, and almost before he could blink, he was clad in the item, looking down at the shapeless blue form._

_She was smiling. "So, you know, you can be all snoodled up when you do your science stuff!"_

_He was smiling, too. "Science stuff," she probably never would care to learn exactly what it was he did, but it was enough for the guy across the hall that she cared enough to get him "a little going away present."_

_Then she was moving toward him. The words "I'm gonna miss you," reached his ears, and then he felt her arms come around him and her body come against him and her head nestle into his shoulder, and he hugged her too because that's what people did and because it wasn't awkward and it just felt like it was supposed to happen, and the feelings he'd managed to push down came up again, niggling, to the surface when she held on longer than he'd expected. His friendly smile faded as he curled his arms back around her, now being able to realize just how close she was, just how well they fit together, and just how tightly she was holding him. He was already holding her closer this second time, but he tightened his arms even more, realizing now just how much he was going to miss her, too._

Leonard stared down at the blanket, shaking his head to clear his mind. The image of Penny and the feel of her arms faded from his mind, but they were replaced with the blackness and a feeling of being too cold for comfort.

"_Dude, stop tossing and turning. You're not the only one in the room."_

"_Sorry," Leonard said bitterly. It seemed that recently he was always just a little bit too cold. The wind was brutal here, and the snow almost constant. It certianly didn't help that they'd been here a month with no positive results. "I'm cold."_

"_We're all cold," Howard mumbled from his bunk. "At least you've got an extra blanket."_

_Leonard sighed, choosing not to respond and instead just wiggling a bit more in his sleeping bag to get his arms through the sleeves. It was true, some nights he was actually able to get comfortable, and that was largely due to the blanket with sleeves. He wondered if Penny had any idea how practical her gift had been. "No," he whispered. "Alcohol, a credit card, and infomercials are not a bad combination."_

"_If you don't stop talking to yourself, Leonard, I am going to sentence you to an hour chained to the outside of this building!"_

"_Put in your earplugs, Sheldon," Howard said. "And shut the acid reflex up yourself!"_

_Leonard frowned. "Huh?"_

"_Jewish Hell Leonard, get with the program."_

Leonard couldn't remember much else about that night, except he'd fallen asleep even more greatful for the blanket than ever before. It was the next day that he'd made…

"_It's a snowflake." He pointed to it. "From the North Pole."_

_The expression on her face had made him warm inside, and when she called his please – God – don't – let – me – mess – this – up ramblings romantic, it felt like she was the first woman to ever give him the time of day. He wasn't used to that, even when it had been a while, a new woman he was about to get with always just felt like the here and the now. He was unprepared for this feeling, the feeling that this was something that had never happened before._

_And the only thing here that had never happened was Penny was looking at him in the same way. And when she kissed him, it had never been more clear that she wasn't doing this because she was drunk, she wasn't doing this because she was upset. She was doing this because, like him, it was what she wanted._

Leonard stopped himself when he had to put a hand to his face to prevent his eyes from betraying him. He tried to remember why he had gone to the drawer in the first place and remembered – his socks were mismatched. And then he realized that he really didn't give a rat's ass.

He leaned back against the bed, the blanket with sleeves on his lap, and blinked rapidly, one, two, three dozen times.

He didn't want to be single. He wasn't happy. He was just happy that it was over with _Priya._

He wanted to be in the relationship that had more ups than downs. He wanted to be with someone who was faithful to him even before their relationship, when he was hours and hours away with no contact at all. Someone who waited for him, not someone who cheated on him.

Leonard put the blanket back in the drawer and closed it, rising to his feet and exiting the room without looking a moment longer for the socks.

"Leonard!"

He stopped at the entrance to the hallway, staring out into the living room. "Hey."

"Hey," she said, "my laptop is frozen."

"Really?" he said, smiling. "It must be eighty degrees out there!"

She cocked her head to the other side. "Very funny."

"Did you try control, alt, delete?" he asked her. Penny was silent. Leonard reached out and took the laptop from her, spinning it to face him and pressing the keys. The cursor started blinking again, signaling that the problem had been resolved.

"Thanks," Penny said, taking it back and putting one arm around his shoulders for a quick hug. He raised a hand to her arm in a brief return, and then it was over. She smiled at him. "I'll see you later."

"Yeah," Leonard said, smiling back. "Sure."

He jerked a little as the door closed behind her, and then he took a step back and fell into his chair. "God dammit."

Every time they were alone together, it seemed, he always wondered, wondered if she was harboring the same feelings for him that were torturing him now and every time something came up that reminded him of her. If maybe, just maybe, they were the pair that both wanted to be together but something, some irrational fear, was keeping them apart. And that maybe, one day, they'd both realize that…

Leonard sighed. He was fooling himself; she no longer felt anything for him. The snowflake had had an effect on her when she was given it, but he was sure that by the time they broke up it was just another trinket to her. He wondered if she even still had it.

And even though he knew, he wondered if he'd ever be able to be okay with the fact that now, when she looked at him, she only saw a friend.

"_Thanks," Penny said, taking it back and putting one arm around his shoulders for a quick hug. He raised a hand to her arm in a brief return, and then it was over._

But damn, even now, even with something as platonic and brief as that hug had been, each time they let each other go, it felt like fourteen billion years too soon.

**Also, the Surrogate Aftermath will be updated soon.**

**And for the record, when someone leaves me a review that is only about whatever I've written in bold...I know you didn't read the fic. I can tell. No one is fooling anyone here. /rant**


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